The 15 Best New Mystery Books of 2022

The Verifiers is Jane Pek’s debut novel, introducing amateur sleuth Claudia Lin. Claudia loves mystery novels, wrote her senior thesis on Jane Austen, and she believes she’s landed her ideal job. She’s just been recruited by Veracity, a referral-only online dating detective agency. But when one of the agency’s clients goes missing, Claudia finds herself breaking the rules to dive deep into the secret world of people’s online lives and corporate deceit.

In this sci-fi mystery novel, readers are introduced to the Paradox Hotel, a hotel where wealthy guests stay while wait for their “flights” into the past. The hotel is close to a time port, and January Cole is the head of security in this hotel. But now a blizzard has hit, meaning no one is making it to their trips to the past any time soon, and everyone is stuck in the hotel. And to make matters worse, January suspects there’s a murderer on the loose. The only problem? January is the only one who can see the corpse in question.

Did you love 2020’s Arsenic and Adobo? Here’s the next book in the series, Homicide and Halo-Halo. In this book, Lila Macapagal’s town of Shady Palms is bringing back the Miss Teen Shady Palms Beauty Pageant, which Lila won years ago. But then the head judge in the pageant gets murdered, and Lila’s cousin (and rival) becomes the prime suspect. Now the two cousins must put their differences aside and solve this case, because one of them might be next.

In Like A Sister, the body of reality TV star Desiree Pierce is discovered on a playground in the Bronx the morning after her 25th birthday party. Everyone is quick to call the death an overdose, but Desiree’s estranged half-sister Lena Scott knows this can’t be what happened. Despite the fact that Lena hasn’t spoken to her sister for years, she’s determined to find out what happened to Desiree. And to get justice for her sister.

Burn Down, Rise Up is a young adult mystery about a group of friends determined to save their city. In the Bronx, people have started going missing, and no one can explain these strange disappearances. At first, 16-year-old Raquel tries to ignore it. After all, police only look for missing white kids. But then her crush Charlize’s cousin goes missing, and Raquel’s mother comes down with a mysterious illness that seems to be linked to the disappearances. When Raquel and Charlize team up to investigate what’s happening to the people and city they care about, they discover that all of these disappearances might be connected to an urban legend called the Echo Game.

Chloe Green is determined to become the valedictorian of her high school, and the only person standing in her way is classmate Shara Wheeler. Then a month before graduation, Shara kisses Chloe…and then disappears. When Chloe goes searching for answers to what happened to Shara, she discovers that she wasn’t the only one Shara kissed. There was also Smith, Shara’s quarterback sweetheart, and Rory, Shara’s bad boy neighbor. The only thing Chloe, Smith, and Rory have in common is the kiss and the cryptic notes Shara left behind. But now the three must work together to figure out what happened to Shara and bring her back — so that Chloe can beat her for valedictorian fair and square.

Who doesn’t love a mystery set in a library? This mystery novel all starts on a quiet day in the reading room at the Boston Public Library. Out of nowhere, a scream shatters the calm. Security guards rush to investigate straight away, and they ask everyone else to remain where they are until they can figure out what happened. While stuck inside the reading room, four strangers who just happened to be sitting at the same table strike up a conversation. Each of them has their own reason for being in the reading room that day. And each of them has a secret. Is one of them a murderer?

Of course, this list would not be complete without the latest from best-selling mystery/thriller author Ruth Ware. The It Girl is a page-turning mystery novel about Hannah Jones and her friend April Clark-Cliveden, who was the first person Hannah met at Oxford University. April was one of those women that people are just naturally drawn to. She was vivacious, bright, and yes, sometimes cruel. But she was the ultimate It girl, and Hannah was lucky enough to be a part of her inner circle, which also included their friends Will, Hugh, Ryan, and Emily. But by the end of their second term, April was dead. Ten years have passed since April’s death, and the man convicted of killing April has died in prison. However, just when Hannah thinks the past is behind her, a young journalist presents new evidence that suggests Neville may have been innocent. Wanting to know the truth about what happened to April, Hannah reconnects with old friends. Could one of them be capable of murder?

The Storyteller’s Death is a family saga and a mystery from International Latino Book Award–winning author Ann Dávila Cardinal. After the death of Isla Larsen Sanchez’s grandmother, Isla discovers she has a gift passed down through her family’s cuentistas. Isla can see the tales of dead family storytellers are brought back to life, replaying in front of her. When one of Isla’s visions reveals an old murder mystery, she realizes she must solve it, or these visions could become dangerous.